"Norik…"
They had a name. Reed murmured the name contemplatively, in the third minute of washing his hands now, while T'Pol thought furiously… it couldn't be.
"Have you heard of him?" Reed asked suddenly. "T'Pol?"
T'Pol hoped she hadn't visibly started.
It couldn't be!
Norik.
Agriculture Minister Norik of the Vulcan High Command.
Norik.
Former V'Shar command operative. T'Pol's former mentor.
"I know his reputation," T'Pol replied carefully, while she tried desperately to somehow seat this piece of information in her mind.
At some point Reed's attention had shifted from the flow of water over his hands, to T'Pol. He was watching her, and T'Pol was grateful for the poor lighting now, for Mr. Reed was no joke.
"Oh?" said Reed. "And what is his reputation?"
T'Pol swallowed and the sound of her voice seemed abnormally loud, even to her own ears.
"He is currently the Agriculture Minister on the Vulcan High Command," said T'Pol. "He is known to be a fair, and not particularly innovative politician. A conservative. A hard worker, but not brilliant. Unremarkable."
That is how Norik was known. But T'Pol knew better.
"You've never met him?" Reed asked softly, still watching her, unblinking.
"I have not met every Vulcan," T'Pol replied, peppering her voice with curtness and holding Reed's steady gaze with her own.
"No," Reed replied after a moment and seemingly turned his attention back to his hands, finally turning off the acrid smelling water. "I suppose not. I'll see you back at the flat, T'Pol. I'll finish tidying up here."
"Very well," said T'Pol, more than grateful to leave this room now, and what was left of Flael.
Malcolm Reed had a problem.
He pondered it now as he prowled through the smoky, putrid streets. His hands rested in his jacket pockets, each around a the handle of a small blade laced with yet another very particular chemical. Colorless and barely scented, if it were to get under his skin, he would likely spend the week with a nasty case of hives. It was worth the risk though, because the slightest nick of either blade would stop the heart of a local in under a minute. Perhaps the various street dwellers had a sixth sense for such things, because they left him alone.
But his other problem was a big one: T'Pol had lied.
After learning of her V'Shar associations, Malcolm had been initially cautious but optimistic, especially when some careful probing of his contacts had suggested that she had signed up for that… group… of her own accord, and not at their behest.
It had been more than likely that the investigation would lead them back to Vulcan, for kvo'ratt were Vulcan vermin after all, and T'Pol might have been useful. But then, quite unexpectedly, just when his suspicions that she would be useful had proved true, her former handler had been named and she had lied right to his face.
Or rather, carefully not lied.
And now he had a decision to make. His expertise in explosives had come as no great surprise to his former crew mates, but they no doubt would have found his other hobby astonishing. On the surface, explosives and poison appeared to have nothing in common, but Malcolm found them to be in pleasing concordance. Small, unassuming substances that could wreak havoc on a much larger scale. Pressure waves tearing flesh apart, biochemical derangements turning organs to slurry.
He had quite a collection with him, and had his former employers not provided him with such, he had the skills to produce them from scratch. Including more than one toxin which was harmless to humans, but deadly to Vulcans. Easily administered a hundred ways… but instinct stayed his hand. Some deep impulse told him that she could still be useful.
But he would watch her.
"Tea."
It wasn't much of a speech, but Trip rarely spoke unnecessarily these days, despite the fact that his kvo'ratt damaged vocal cords had been healed by now, and so T'Pol added the word to the thoughtfulness of the gesture.
"Thank you," she said softly: after the disagreeable odors of the warehouse and of the streets, the tea's pleasant olfactory bouquet was calming. The tea, and the Human: this human.
"You okay? You look exhausted," Trip rasped softly, sitting down beside her. "Things go bad with Flael?"
"We got a name," T'Pol replied simply.
"Yeah, you told me already. Norik." Trip said the name as if it tasted bad, then heavily closed his eyes.
Something about his face like that, eyes closed, contorted, catapulted T'Pol back in her memory. Back to encountering Reed and Trip in Enterprise's corridor, Trip already paralyzed with venom, Reed ailing, both being swarmed by her childhood nightmares brought to life.
Kvo'ratt.
"Get him to SickBay! He's dying..." Reed had lisped frantically when he saw her even as his leg muscles gave way underneath him.
And T'Pol had scooped up Commander Tucker and had run to SickBay. It was a distressingly long time before she had collected herself enough to send someone to assist Reed, who had fortunately survived regardless. It had been as if her mind had snagged on that word... dying... and had refused to unsnag until Commander Tucker was in the hands of the doctor.
Dying… dying… dying… it had tolled in her mind with each footfall. But he'd lived.
And they'd shared a night watch, in those long days awaiting the Vulcan cruiser, T'Karad, and shared more than that in the dark, for he'd entered her body, and she had entered his mind, quite unexpectedly so... yet T'Pol regretted nothing of that night.
"I dream about you all the time now," said Trip, as she sipped her tea. "I can talk to you, and it's all white."
T'Pol started at that: she hadn't known that such things could happen with a Human.
Reed was taking his sweet time getting back, thought Archer, quite moodily, as he shoveled some of the unappetizing local gruel into his mouth.
T'Pol and Trip had long ago and none too subtly disappeared into the adjacent room, leaving Archer to brood alone. The walls were thin.
Slightly sullenly, Archer forced himself to focus on the name - Norik of Vulcan.
T'Pol had had little to say of that character: Minister for Agriculture.
Flesh eating murder-bugs were agriculture now, he supposed. Still, Minister.
What were they getting themselves into here? He'd known it might be a Vulcan responsible, had suspected as much, in fact, but a minister of the High Command? As much as he had ground his teeth over Vulcan delays and interference, he'd never imagined that they would… he was a rogue surely, this Norik. He must be. The High Command had certainly been willing to moan, to complain, to counsel delay rather than set the Enterprise free to roam about at will, but… to murder a third of his crew? Even despite what they had cost his father, Archer Couldn't believe that of Vulcans.
No, this Norik must be some sort of radical. He must have acted alone.
With little else to do, Archer conjured up a generic Vulcan face for Norik in his imagination and imagined punching it over and over again, until perhaps two hours later, Reed finally rolled up.
"You took your time," Archer grumbled.
Reed appeared preoccupied with the noises emanating from the next room and so it took him a moment to reply.
"Sorry, sir."
Archer didn't bother to correct him, and said, "You've sent Flael on his way?"
Reed nodded slowly, sliding into a chair with his own bowl of gruel, which he'd not even bothered to heat. "Yes, sir. I don't think he'll surface for a while."
Norik.
Trip breathed the name silently into the darkness. T'Pol lay beside him, warming the right side of his body with her astonishing warmth. She was only feigning sleep, although Trip was not sure how he knew this was true. Her breath on his neck was perfectly regular, regular also the rise and fall of her breasts against his side.
And yet her mind was busy and he could sense it.
Images of the lost swirled around him in the quiet. Hoshi Sato nattering away in some impossible language. Her extraordinary mind had withered and died for nothing. Michael Rostov's quick hands and goofy smile, devoured. For nothing.
He lifted his right hand, curled around T'Pol's waist and ran it along the alien contours of her spine. This tickled her like hell, he knew and he smiled at the discipline which it must have taken her to feign sleep regardless. He kissed her then, and she pretended to wake. The feel of the other's skin banished both of their ghosts for a while.